Iran’s supreme leader has appointed a new head of the country’s elite Quds Force after its top general, Qassem Soleimani, was killed in a US airstrike ordered by President Donald Trump.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement to Reuters that he is replacing Soleimani with the deputy commander of the Quds Force, Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani.

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He said the program of the Quds Force, a paramilitary branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, “will be unchanged from the time of his predecessor.”

Khamenei warned that a “harsh retaliation is waiting” for those who killed Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport early Friday morning, calling the slain commander the “international face of resistance,” the Associated Press reported.

Ghaani became the deputy commander of the Quds Force in 1997 when Soleimani became its chief commander.

The new Quds Force leader told Iranian media in 2017 that Trump’s “threats against Iran will damage America … We have buried many … like Trump and know how to fight against America.”

“We are not a war-mongering country. But any military action against Iran will be regretted,” he said at the time, according to Newsweek.

Soleimani’s death is the latest incident of escalating tension between the Trump administration and Iran, which dates back to 2018 when the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and imposed sanctions.

Prior to Soleimani’s death, the Pentagon had deemed the Quds Force leader responsible for the deaths of hundreds of US service members and said he had abetted terrorism throughout the region.